Smoked Baby Back Ribs on a Traeger Pellet Grill

Learn step by step how to prepare perfectly smoked baby back ribs on a Traeger pellet grill!

We cover how to prep, season, cook, and sauce your baby backs using the 3 2 1 Method and why the Traeger pellet grill makes it so easy to cook these ribs.

Let's go!

Why do we LOVE baby back ribs so much?

Well it may have to do with them being leaner and sometimes meatier than there sparerib counterparts, also known as St. Louis Style or St. Louis Cut Ribs.

Now, they both come from the same rib, hogs don't have one set of baby back ribs and another set of spare ribs.

But, the baby backs are cut from the ⅓ of that rib that is closer to the spine, or back of the pig, in the same area as the spinalis muscle, or loin, where the pork chops are taken from.

In fact, a full size, untrimmed, bone-in pork chop would have a baby back rib attached to it.

Baby back ribs share a lot of the same leaner whiter meat which is why they are so delicious, but also easier than spare ribs to over cook and dry out if not cooked properly.

Jump to:

• Purchasing Ribs
• Remove the Membrane
• Apply the Rub
• Allow the Rub to Rest
• Store Bought Rib Rubs
• Homemade Rib Rubs
• Rib Sauces
• Choosing Wood Pellets for Ribs
• Start the Grill
• Smoking Temperature
• The 3 2 1 Method
• Carve and Serve the Ribs
• 📖 Recipe

Purchasing Ribs

If you are feeding a crowd, you may be trying to decide how many slabs of baby back ribs you need to cook on your Traeger to feed everyone.

Most hungry adults can easily eat a half a slab which is about 6 ribs.

Take into consideration if you are also serving other proteins or a lot of heavy sides in which case folks may only take 3-4 ribs.

One great way to fit a lot of ribs at once on your Traeger is to use a Rib Rack.

You can stand 5 racks upright and fit around 10 slabs on a typical Traeger pellet grill so you can feed a large crowd!

Remove the Membrane

Once you have removed your slabs of baby back ribs from the packaging, you will need to remove the membrane on the back of each rack.

This membrane not only keeps the seasonings from penetrating the meat, but makes the ribs harder to carve and bite into or fall off the bone, and is well...just generally unappetizing to your guests.

Luckily it's not hard to remove with a couple tricks used by BBQ professionals all over the world every day.

First, slide a good sharp knife, preferably a good boning knife like our favorite one from Imarku to get the membrane separated from one of the corners.

Next, once you can grab a little bit of the membrane, use a paper towel to grip it tight and pull down to the other corner.

Sometimes it comes off in one big piece, other times you will need to go back and remove some pieces that didn't come off, but using a paper towel is the best way to get a hold of this slippery membrane.

Once this membrane is removed, you are ready to season your baby back ribs.

Apply the Rub

Mustard? But of Course!

Believe it or not, one of the best ways to bind your rub to your meat is with plain old yellow mustard.

Trust us.

And trust the thousands of BBQ competitors who have used it over the years.  You won't taste any mustard flavor once the cook is over and it holds the rub in place like a champ.

Simply spread a thin layer of yellow mustard all over the front and back of your baby backs and then sprinkle your rub on after that.

If you are separating out your salt from your rub, add the salt first, then the rub on top of that so that the salt is closer to the surface of the meat.

If you truly have an aversion to using any kind of mustard, you can also substitute a thin layer of any kind of cooking oil you wish. But make sure to use something as this will help the rub adhere to the meat and not fall off as you are handling it.

Allow the Rub to Rest

Once you've applied your rub to the baby backs, don't throw them right on the Traeger just yet.

Give the rub about 20-30 minutes to draw some moisture out of the meat and create a nice paste on the outside of the meat.

This pulled out moisture will absorb a lot of your smoke flavor, and eventually that moisture will make its way BACK into the meat as it rises in temperature pulling your delicious rub and absorbed smoke with it  into the meat and also helping to create that coveted pink smoke ring.

Store Bought Rib Rubs

Asking "What's the best rub for ribs?" is kind of like asking "What is the best car on the market?", or "Who was the best baseball player?"

You are bound to start some opinionated discussions.

But like all things BBQ, it comes down to your personal preferences, dietary restrictions, the crowd you are cooking for, and really, just what you happen to be in the mood for that day.

If you don't want a lot of salt, make your own rub and cut back on the salt. If you don't want a lot of sugar, we've got a great suggestion below for that too.

What we CAN say is we've tried A LOT of rubs and sauces over the years, and these are our favorites below.

Blues Hog

Blues Hog products are widely used on the competition circuit, and for good reason.

Their original rub is very sugar and paprika forward, without a lot of spice, so if you are going for a sweeter flavor for your baby backs, this is the way to go.

Three Little Pigs

Three Little Pigs is one of our personal favorites, and their Kansas City Championship rub will give you a bit more garlic, onion, and spice than Blues Hog will.

You can always mix it in with a more balanced rub like Blues Hog if you just want to add a little of those flavors.

Bad Byron's Butt Rub

If you want to use a quality rub without ANY sugar, we are big fans of Bad Byron's Butt Rub Seasoning.

Although we typically use it on cuts of beef and steaks where we are going for a more savory flavor, there is no reason you can't apply it to your baby back ribs because it is heavy on flavor, and has no sugar.

Homemade Rib Rubs

We are big fans of Meathead Goldwyn over at amazingribs.com, and are also in love with his Memphis Dust Rub recipe.

It's so good, you don't even need sauce.

Now, Meathead doesn't put salt in any of his rub recipes but rather salts his meat separately first.

So make sure to take that into consideration if you choose to prepare this classic rub for your baby back ribs.

Sometimes, you forgot you ran out of your favorite rub, or don't have all the ingredients on hand to make a complex one from scratch.

If you just want to get a good classic rub on your baby back ribs before throwing them on the Traeger, then we've got you covered with this simple rib rub recipe with seasonings most people have on hand in the pantry:

• ½ Cup Dark Brown Sugar
• ¼ Cup Paprika
• 1 tablespoon Coarse Ground Black Pepper
• 1 tablespoon Kosher Salt (Or ½ tablespoon table salt, go easy, you can always add more salt later)
• 1 tablespoon Chili Powder
• ½ tablespoon Granulated Garlic or Garlic Powder (adjust to taste)
• ½ tablespoon Onion Powder (adjust to taste)
• 1 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper (optional)

Mix thoroughly, (using a re-usable plastic shaker works best), and then sprinkle directly on your ribs after applying some mustard to bind as described above.

Rib Sauces

Blues Hog again wins the day here with their amazing lineup of sauces. While their rubs are great, their sauces are WORLD CLASS.

Their Original BBQ Sauce is VERY thick, VERY sweet, and incredibly heavy on flavor, so a little goes a LONG way.

In fact, we actually like to cut it with their Tennessee Red Sauce, which is a thinner, more vinegar based sauce, that is our hands down favorite sauce to use on our pulled pork as described here.

So many pitmasters mix these sauces that Blues Hog actually created a premixed blend called Champions Blend, which is what we now use for ribs!

You can also mix Blues Hog Original with one of your other favorite sauces. We suggest using a more savory sauces to balance the sugar, like this one from Aaron Franklin.

Kosmos also makes a great lineup of BBQ sauces that work great on baby back ribs, especially if you want to try some more adventurous flavors such as their Peach Habanero or Honey Jalapeno.

Choosing Wood Pellets for Ribs

You have a lot of options when it comes to choosing the right wood pellets to smoke your baby back ribs on a Traeger pellet grill.

Mesquite and hickory will give a very aggressive smoke flavor to the lean baby back ribs, usually a little too much if used solely on their own rather than mixed with a milder fruitwood.

Pecan, apple, beech, alder, and cherry pellets all give great results on baby backs when cooked on a Traeger.

For a very straightforward flavor on baby backs, we are also big fans of Bear Mountain Red and White Smoky Oak Pellets.

Our favorite premium brand pellets are from Knotty Wood. We particularly like their 100% Plum Pellets and Almond Cabernet Wine Pellets. Because these pellets do cost more than pellets from a big box store, we use the premium pellets in a smoker tube and save the inexpensive pellets for the hopper.

For the best results, store your unused pellets in a sealed room temperature container like this 20 lb pellet container rather than in the Traeger hopper outside.

Traeger pellets do not last forever, but will definitely last a LOT longer if stored indoors.

STILL LOOKING FOR MORE SMOKE FLAVOR ON A PELLET GRILL? Check out our tips for making a small firebox with real wood and charcoal!

Start the Grill

Now that the baby back ribs have been seasoned and the rub has rested and permeated the meat a bit, all that's left to do is cook them!

With a Traeger, this is the easy part!

Like we described above, just add your chosen pellets to the hopper, plug in and start the Traeger grill up.

There is a specific start up process for the Traeger brand pellet grills you can read all about in depth here if you aren't sure how to fire it up the first time.

Let the Traeger go through its start up process and once it has come up to temperature and stopped producing the thick white "start- up" smoke, put the baby back ribs on the grill.

Read More: What's the difference between the Smoke setting and the 180 Degree setting on a Traeger?

Smoking Temperature

We recommend initially setting up the smoker to cook at 250°F.

This seems to be the sweet spot where its low enough that the outside doesn't overcook but also high enough that the baby backs don't cook for so long that they dry out.

If you choose to cook at a higher or lower temperature, make sure to adjust your times during each stage of The 3 2 1 Method outlined below.

The 3 2 1 Method

A popular technique for smoking ribs is what's known as The 3 2 1 Method.

This refers to the following blocks of time:

• The First 3 Hours: Smoking the ribs
• The Next 2 Hours: Wrapping the ribs in foil so that they steam and get tender and more "Fall off the Bone" style.
• The Last 1 Hour: Taking them out of the foil and putting them back on the grill to firm up and finally saucing them during the last 30 minutes.

Now, this is just a framework, and a way of simplifying the process.  Understand that in BBQ there are no absolutes.

You can keep your Traeger pegged at 250°F throughout this whole process.

The First 3 Hours - Smoke

3 hours is a suggestion. You may only need to smoke the baby ribs for 2 hours before wrapping.

The idea is to get a nice smoke flavor on them and get them to turn a nice dark red and amber color without completely drying them out.

Pro Tip: Line your slabs up with the thicker ends to the right, which is normally the hotter side of the Traeger.

One way to keep them from drying out is to spritz them with some sort or flavorful juice, cola, or beer during this part of the cook.  Many BBQ pros like to use a mixture of 75% apple juice and 25% apple cider vinegar.  Some use cherry cola and swear by  the sugar caramelizing on the surface.

Once you have a nice color of the ribs after about 1.5 to 2 hours, keep a close eye on them if you cook any longer.  You want to avoid burnt edges and big splits across the top of the meat.

You can rotate them a bit during this time if one side of your Traeger is a lot hotter than the other. If you are using rib racks, turn them over about half way through the cook to make sure they cook evenly.

The Next 2 Hours - Wrap

Again, 2 hours is a suggestion, and with baby backs, unlike their fattier sparerib counterparts, you probably won't need to wrap a full 2 hours.

The longer you wrap, the more the ribs will steam and become fall off the bone tender. But over do it and you'll end up with a foil bag of bare bones and loose shredded pork.

So wrap tightly for 45 minutes to an hour and then check every 15 minutes until you see the meat pulling away from the ends of the bones.

This is usually a good indicator they are ready to come out of the foil.

Have fun with your ingredients inside the foil.  may BBQ competitors use a combination Parkay squeeze butter, brown sugar, and honey to make a sweet glazy bath for their ribs in the foil.

Pro Tip: For more moist, fall off the bone meat, place the ribs upside down into your foil wrap of ingredients, wrap, and then place on the grill upside down this way.  Then turn them back over right side up to firm up later when you remove form the foil in step 3.

The Final Hour - Firm and Sauce

It may take a few cooks for you to learn exactly how long to wrap your ribs based on how you like them.

Once you are ready to remove them from the foil be careful, the steam and liquid will be EXTREMELY HOT!

Our favorite way to handle hot food right off the grill is to use disposable food-safe nitrile gloves on top of cloth glove liners.

The cloth liners protect your hands from the heat, and the outer disposable gloves can be changed often. We find this much easier than trying to awkwardly use forks and tongs to move the hot racks of ribs.

For one, you don't want to burn yourself, but you also don't want to end up with a hot slippery slab of ribs on the ground.

Place the baby back ribs back on the Traeger unwrapped and right side up (or back in the rib rack) and give them about 30 minutes to firm up a little before you start putting on any sauce.

Then baste your favorite sauce (or combo of sauces like Blues Hog Original and Tennessee Red mentioned above) on for the last 30 minutes.

This will give the sauce some time to caramelize on the ribs a bit and stick to the meat.

You are welcome to crank the heat on your Traeger here for the last 30 minutes up to 275-300°F but just make sure not to burn the sugars in you sauce.

Carve and Serve the Ribs

When it comes to slicing up and serving your Traeger baby back ribs, you can stand them upright to see the lines of the bones easier and cut top to bottom.

A good meat slicing knife makes all the difference and will keep the baby backs form falling apart as you slice.

We particularly like this meat slicing knife from Mairico.

We don't recommended cutting every rib up individually before serving or they are more likely to dry out.

Depending how many guest you are serving, you can either give each person their own ⅓ to ½ slab, or put them on a platter cut up in 2-3 rib sections for people to take with tongs.

Serve some extra sauce on the side for those who want it, and enjoy!

📖 Recipe